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Thursday, October 31, 2013

I haven't been that great with updating because I'm caught up in the precarious balancing act of school work, organization commitments, feeding myself, and socializing, but I wanted to share a few things as October comes to a close.

It's Purple Week here at school, sponsored by the Women's Resource Center and the Advocates club. Although it was initially for women against domestic, relationship, and sexual violence, it really encompasses awareness against all forms of violence. On Tuesday, they had their annual event of Take Back the Night, which was established in 1999 as a vigil and protest against sexual violence. It's for people to reclaim the space they may have lost-- both physical and metaphorical-- and be unafraid in the world. I deeply regretted not making time to attend last year's TBN, so as soon as my good friend Kat asked me if I was interested in speaking, I committed. I didn't quite know what I was going to be reading until the end of Tuesday morning, but I resurrected many thoughts that have stirred through my heart, mind, and being. It's not necessarily a story, but an open letter; to myself, to you, to them, and to everyone. And please bear in mind that it draws from twenty (nearly twenty-one!) years of observation, but is not entirely applicable to my life as I have known it (i.e., I've incorporated the experiences of others).

//////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\

For Take Back the Night, 2013

You
are beautiful.

You are strong.

You are intelligent.

And the things that you do matter.

This
is what I tell myself when I feel like the world doesn’t want me. The first time I said this phrase aloud,
facing a mirror, I nearly choked. I
couldn’t admit to myself that I was worth appreciation. That I was worth loving.

I’ve
never had a significant other. My
psychological and emotional and physical closeness has never been shared at
once with another. So for many years,
and sometimes even now, I hate myself for not understanding love.

And
yet, it goes beyond my lack of personal experience, the seemingly pointless
wallowing. Because desire, lust,
passion, greed, obsession, possession—these are realities I have witnessed, at
times, under the guise of love. Of
acceptability.

It’s
not only about when the sun goes down.
The violence is subtle, and it’s insistent; language, media, behavior,
songs, expectations, and movement. If we
recognize it, we should do what we can to end it.

But
the violence can also be in your memoires, and it’s not always easy to
interpret. When you witness someone
hurting another, as a child, what do you
do with that pain?

I saw
her hit her. She hit him. He
consumed him, he didn’t understand, he touched me, she touched her, he hurt
her, he asked and she still hurt, they hurt her, they didn’t listen, and still,
and still—

she
internalized all of it.

[There
are days that I feel like I’m carrying the weight of one thousand and one women. We are each threads in Shehrezad’s story,
woven delicately and intersecting, fragile but surviving through this
connection. It is a narrative of
illusion, whether the assurance that we’re safe, or the relief of
finality. It’s never truly over.]

But I
don’t think it’s about being against one another, pitting men against women;
but for a common space,
together. Without fear.

I
stand here, on my stage. My literal
stage, my metaphorical stage. I watch,
but I don’t always know how to act, how to respond. I’m doing this for me; for them; for all of
you. I am a watcher, a listener, and
now—I am a speaker.

We
all carry our pain differently. I carry
my pain, and I will carry yours too,
if you want me to. Maybe I won’t
absolutely understand, but I will do this for you. You are not defined by your pain.

You
are beautiful, you are strong, you are intelligent, YOU ARE WORTH SOMETHING,

And
the things that you do, matter.

//////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\

So that was emancipating, in every sense. Mind you, I was the third of four speakers, and although I wasn't directly sharing a story of assault, I was shaking. My head was buzzing with the words of those before me and the eyes of everyone in the room. It was the largest attendance of TBN, perhaps at least fifty people, with many faces I wasn't expecting and the familiar ones that would have been comforted if I wasn't already blinded by my own nervous. The passage in the brackets? Yeah, that was my favorite section that I wrote, but I accidentally skipped over it--that's what I get for not rehearsing..

At any rate, I read these scribbles off a red sheet of construction paper, wearing red lipstick. I think I had the support of everyone and there were people that approached me afterwards in thanks. I meant every word, I told them.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

School life keeps me busy, and academics aside, it's been a fantastic time! Two weekends ago we had our Fall Fest concert, this year featuring The Rubens from Wales and Grouplove from L.A.! My housemates and I rocked out in the front row, pinned against barriers and moshing freshmen. I was enamored by their lead singer Hannah who bounced and belted around stage in a skeleton morph suit!

Autumn in the Northeast is such a relief. This past week was crisp and sunny, unusually warm but ablaze with the changing trees. I started volunteering as an after school mentor with middle school students in a program called Club SLU, and their campus has a nice set of trails to run around. I enjoy sitting outside the student center in the sun whenever there's a break between classes, and I squeezed in an hour of canoeing yesterday with Jenny on the Grasse River!

The CSA is treating us with the last of the basil, peppers, and tomatoes, and now we're receiving squash, bok choy, and beautiful green and purple tomatillos. Those promptly turned into fiery salsa and frittatas. And now it's apple season, which means pie! I made two this past week, with a flaky, homemade crust. I tend to prefer baking over my readings...

Family weekend at school just concluded. It made to me happy to watching the amusing interactions between students and their parents, showing them around campus, eating at the dining halls, attending football games and concerts.. even the sole bar. My parents are in sunny Florida, but Lia's and Elizabeth's joined us for the weekend, along Ally's sister who's visiting from North Carolina. We had a big family dinner at the townhouse with chicken wing dip, bean dip, chips, vegetable lasagna, salad, garlic bread, Riesling, wine slushies and the like.

And I'm off to volunteer and cook with Campus Kitchens, lead a copy-editing session for The Laurentian Magazine, then more homework. Just another weekend until mid-semester break, but I would say that I'm in a good place right now.

Listening: the Patriots-Cincinnati football game that my housemates are watching in the living room.